Josh Morgan is the co-founder of Intense Debate.

Can you tell us a little about what the development process was like? What has happened from when the idea was conceived up until today?

Intense Debate was started in October of 2006. We worked on a new way to debate online until we were accepted into the TechStars program in June of 2007. We were advised to pursue one of our future goals which was to make blog comments better. Blogs have long been touted as conversation tools, but the factory installed comment systems that come with blog publishing tools have hampered the the very discussion it should foster. So, after some difficult conversations about the viability and chances for success of our debate product we decided to move forward with a different idea.

We began development in early June of our comment system and launched into a closed beta on August 7, 2007. We launched into an open beta on October 30, 2007 allowing any publisher to install our comment system.

How does Intense Debate make money?

Intense Debate will make money by offering an opt-in advertising unit to be placed within our comment system where we will share the revenue with any publisher wishing to have an additional source of revenue.

What are some challenges you've faced up to this point?

The biggest challenge to us thus far has been changing ideas. We had worked on a product for nearly nine months and decided to go a different direction. It was very difficult to put aside eight months of work to pursue something else. Another challenge we overcame during the first eight months was working virtually. I had never met my partners in person until we were accepted into the TechStars program. We used services like Basecamp, Skype, and IM to communicate and build a complete product.

What is your biggest strength when compared to competitors?

Our biggest strengths in regards to our competitors revolve around our commitment to the publisher. We do not mirror every comment made on the publisher's site back on our own. We offer a tremendous amount of features, customization options, and comment display options. We support OpenID. We also have a commitment to offering data migration options. We allow every publisher to download an XML file of their comment data as often as they like. We were the first to do this. We also offer comment export options for publishers using Wordpress and Blogger. We are the only company offering this.